Okay, I'm having a bit of a hard time here... I want to install the ALSA drivers, but it says I need to do something with soundcore.. What is soundcore and how to I use it?

What distro are you using? Easiest way to install a package that is giving you dependency trouble is to use apt.

I'm using Mandrak 9.1(Bamboo). And what does apt. mean?

what's the exact error.
have you checked all the other alsa threads?

It says I need to configure a kernel with sound support through Soundcore module.. I have no clue what that is, nor how to affect it.

this will help you get help in future:

to copy: [e.g. an error] select the text - OR - CTRL C
to paste: press the mouse scroller - OR - CTRL V

That way we get the full picture.
what type of package did you try to install - rpm? tar.gz? or are you compiling them from alsa's website?

apt-get is a program to get packages and install them - there is plenty of research on the net about it. It can be handy to use sometimes.

You need to compile a custom kernel from source. If you have never done this before then you may be in for more than you bargained for. You can get the kernel source at www.kernel.org and there is lots of howto's and other guides for installing kernels, so just have a google. At a bare minimum you should read the README file included in the source.

I suggest when the time comes that you use 'make xconfig' as it is usually the easiest for beginners. There is a section 'Sound Support', just select the first option as a module (M), it's called "Sound Card Support", this will create a module called soundcore.o, which is what Alsa is referring to. Don't create any other sound modules...just this one.

bulliver - does'nt the default Mandrake 9.1 kernel support sound?
Or does it need to be modular [or something]!?!?

Starr - did you ever try to update the kernel thru any updae wizard?

Mandrake has urpmi instead of apt. (There's also a GUI front end; either grpmi or rpmdrake from the command line, or Configuration, Packaging, Install software from the menus).

Mandrake also has a sound installation wizard - draksound. You can invoke it by going to Configuration, Mandrake Control Panel, Hardware, System, double click on your sound card, and click "configure" or "setup driver" (from memory). But draksound should work from command line too.

One thing with alsasound - make sure that you have the volume turned up. For some reason I have to manually set the master and PCM volumes in my boot scripts.

amixer set Master 50
amixer set PCM 50
etc

yeah I'm the same way - the darn vol won't stay up. Any chance you can post those scripts??

Hi, just paste those two lines that I typed above into your .login file. I don't know if this is the "proper" place for them or not, but it is run at bootup at least.

I also have a line following those to play a sound, so I know it is up:

play -d /dev/audio blah.wav &

You may have to alter the device depending on your setup.

thanks man - I'll giver it a whirl later.

Won't the soundcore module work? (# modprobe soundcore)
___
shack

Im trying to get my sound to work as well, i have onboard sound with my P4P800 ASUS mobo, and im trying to get the sound to work. i've installed the latest ALSA-drivers (1.0.5a) and i've /.configure;make;make install 'ed and everything goes fine, but when i reboot it still doesn't work. says the device cannot be recognized.

It's 10 o'clock. Have you run alsaconf yet?